Category: Politics

Melamine – the gift that keeps on giving

And the melamine contamination problem spreads to more parts of the American food chain: More animals got tainted food.

What irks me is that the only thing the politicians seem to be responding to is that “OMG terrorists might put something in our food”. Which is true, but it’s not the immediate threat. How about the fact that potentially lethal industrial-grade chemicals are being dumped into our food supply RIGHT NOW? Shouldn’t that be enough of a reason to take action?

This is a start:

[Congressional] Democrats say they will introduce legislation that would permit the FDA to force mandatory food recalls — a power it now lacks — and increase funding to hire more inspectors.

Hopefully this President will actually sign such legislation.

One thing we did this weekend was to head over to Whole Foods and attempt to do all our weekly grocery shopping there. We’ve gone there before for specialty items, but never tried to do our ‘normal’ grocery shopping. And with the exception of one item (some Aquafina flavored water that Scott really likes) we were able to do so, and we came home with several bags full of organic, non-big-brand food for the house. A few items matched the prices we would pay at a conventional grocery store (like pasta and tomato paste), but most items were a little more. Some few were double the price of their ‘conventional’ alternatives. For example, we skipped buying and meat or chicken — with boneless chicken breasts going for more than $6 a pound in the “sale” bin, the price was too high.

Although we have a bunch of nice, “safe” food in the house, I don’t feel particularly good about our shopping trip. It’s no secret that the food shopping options for poor people are worse than the ones for more well-off ones, but Whole Foods and their higher prices seems to raise the bar even further. As amazing as Whole Foods is, the people who really need the added benefits of a healthy diet are the people least able to afford their prices.

You shouldn’t have to be well-off to be able to have access to safe food. And you shouldn’t have to scare the government with the terrorism bogeyman in order to get them to do something about the safety of the nation’s food supply.

WMDs in Iraq? Put a Ribbon On Your SUV!

Two things that jumped out at me this morning:

1) Glenn Greenwald’s piece on the new WMD conspiracy theory currently making the right-wing rounds. Here’s a hint: any theory which requires the complicity of hundreds if not thousands of government workers on all parts of the political spectrum is utter BS. Doesn’t matter what theory you’re talking about, that’s just basic human nature.

2) This excellent video (slightly NSFW, profanity):

Why Bush Won’t Be Impeached

I posted a somewhat shorter version of these thoughts on a private web board tonight, then decided I might as well expand my thoughts into a blog post. It’s in response to an ongoing discussion of when, if ever, the Congress will impeach President Bush:

I’m quite sure that even some Republicans heartily wish Bush were out of office, although probably not for the same reasons as we Democrats. Even so, that doesn’t increase the likelihood of impeachment.

It feels really good to say “Impeach him!” and visualize the humiliating trial and spectacle that Bush deserves. Hell, I’d love to see it too. I’d love to see Cheney go down, and Rove led away in handcuffs, and all of these assclowns get the punishment they so richly deserve. Don’t think that because I disagree with [the people waiting impatiently for impeachment] that I don’t want those things too.

But this is real life, and real life is very, very rarely that neat and clean. If I’ve learned anything in my years on this planet, I’ve learned that human beings are drawn to the extremes. We love drama, we love showdowns, we love big, exciting finishes. We love vengeance and payback and bad people getting what they deserve. And in situations like this one, we want to think that that’s what we’re going to get. We want it so badly we convince ourselves that it’s the only possible course of action.

The other side of the coin is that inertia is a powerful motivator too. People are very much in love with the status quo, and they deeply fear change. There’s also that fact that despite all the crap that this administration does, we still have a country to run, and only so may hours in the day to get things done. Is payback for past offenses more important that that? Not everyone thinks so. After all, Bush is termed out, and there’s less than 2 years to go until Election Day 2008. Perhaps it would be better to just get through these next two years as best we can, minimize the damage as much as possible, and then move on with some other President.

The end result of any event is hardly ever as good or as bad as people predict. Usually, what you get is something that’s more nuanced, more towards the middle of the possible range of results. What does that mean for the current Gonzales / Rove / US Attorney scandal? I don’t know, but I strongly suspect that what will happen will end up looking a lot more like the Libbey trial than like the Nixon impeachment.

Untangling the Rove / Gonzales web, bit by bit

I IMed a link to a friend earlier today about the news that Karl Rove was, unsurprisingly, more involved than the White House originally admitted in the current US attorney firing scandal. Her response was (more or less): “I wonder if this is what it felt like during Watergate”.

I grew up with two highly politically aware parents and am old enough to remember Watergate. I don’t remember the story unfolding piece by piece — I mostly remember odd details like the “Impeach Nixon” buttons — but I do know exactly where I was the day Nixon resigned, becasue we were on an airplane to Hawaii when it happened, and the captain got onto the intercom to announce the news.

All of which is a long way of saying, I don’t know if this is like Watergate, or just another three-day scandal. Even if it is, I doubt we’ll have the same outcome. If Gonzales and Rove get booted from their jobs, well, that’s at least a step in the right direction. We’ll know more next week, maybe, at Senator Schumer’s hearings.